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[quote=Anonymous]This isn't a child abuse worry thing. It's cultural. I lived many years in Europe but grew up in the US.

The education systems to start are different. In the European countries I was in (and I had friends who were teachers), it was more about memorizing facts and numbers. In the US system, it's more about working on group projects, and know _how_ to find the answer, but not memorizing the answer. It's more about the why than the what.

There are pluses and minuses to this. It encourages creativity, and it's why the US tends to dominate in innovation and cultural areas (music, movies), since those require creativity and thinking outside the box. However, it also means Americans are pretty bad with facts -- ask them to find country X on a map, or who the prime minister of country Y is, and they simply won't know it. The European system is great when you need people to follow a strict set of rules, which is why the Germans are great at engineering and manufacturing for example.

You can see it even in the grading systems. In Korea and China, there's one day a year when all students in high school sit for this major exam, and their score on that one exam determines their destiny -- which university will accept them. Universities choose students almost solely based on that exam score, and don't look at the student holistically, ignoring extra-curriculars, family life, grades, etc.

On a personal side, we face this now as I'm American and DW is European and grew up under that system, where children were seen and not heard. It's striking when we go to visit her country and we see her sister's children -- afraid to talk or say anything unless asked, and then it's one-word answers. Meanwhile ours are very vocal and definitely expressive. Yes, they can be more unruly at times, but we've decided that's a worthy trade-off.[/quote]

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